LASORDA FAMILIAR WITH SHORTCOMINGS.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

Have you heard about the guide in the Galapagos Islands with a fastball so wicked it turns batters into turtles? How about the outfielder in the South Orkney Islands with a whale of an arm?

No? Well neither have we, actually.

However, that shouldn't sway the Dodgers. They ought to put their emissary Tom Lasorda on the next plane bound for Quito, Ecuador, or the Kirkwall Airport in Orkney by way of Aberdeen, Scotland. After all, you never know where you'll uncover the next Pedro Martinez or Jose Offerman.

It could be anywhere from Antarctica to Zimbabwe and if it's not, well, at least Lasorda will be out of sight and way out of his cell phone's roaming range.

Silence, like his retirement years, apparently isn't golden for Lasorda, a Dodgers lifer whose recent history suggests he'd sooner be duplicitous than forgotten.

For Lasorda, a senior vice president with the Dodgers, there's no such thing as riding quietly into the sunset. Every so often he just has to get up on his high horse and kick up a little dirt, the better to beckon the spotlight he craves even more than his next plate of linguine.

It's sad but true; Lasorda has managed to make goodwill ambassador an oxymoron in the three years since health concerns compelled him to step down as the Dodgers manager.

That certainly was not goodwill he was spreading - it smelled more like fertilizer - when he accused Dodgers players of acting in their own best interests instead of the best interests of the team.

``We've been an embarrassment because they're not focusing on the team, they're focusing on themselves,'' Lasorda was quoted as saying Sunday in another Los Angeles newspaper. ``It's embarrassing because of what the Dodgers have always represented.''

Oh yeah? If we were Lasorda, the franchise's fading image wouldn't upset us nearly as much as the emerging truth.

Raul Mondesi retreating to the bullpen after making a fielding error rather than owning up to his mistake in the dugout is no more embarrassing than a Dodger using the occasion of his Hall of Fame induction to lobby for another Dodger's job.

Lasorda was guilty of that two Augusts ago, much to the dismay of reigning general manager, Fred Claire, whose job Lasorda clearly coveted.

Claire would lose his job the following spring and as, ahem, coincidence would have it, Lasorda was named to replace him on an interim basis.

Ismael Valdes' preoccupation with his own performance is no more embarrassing than Lasorda mortgaging the Dodgers' future last summer to improve his immediate standing.

Lasorda was the one who ransacked the Dodgers' farm system to obtain players who would bring the team - and, by extension, himself - instant glory.

It didn't work out that way, of course. The Dodgers do have Lasorda to thank for Jeff Shaw. But it took all the powers of persuasion of his successor, Kevin Malone, to get the closer not to act on the trade clause in his contract that had escaped Lasorda's notice.

Pitcher Carlos Perez, he's a Lasorda acquisition, too. And speaking of minor-leaguers, Paul Konerko, one of the prospects Lasorda unloaded for Shaw, is having a breakout season with the White Sox, batting more than .300 with 15 home runs.

Let's face it, if the Dodgers on the field aren't advancing runners because their mindset is to wait for a pitch to send out of the park, well, there's precedence for that kind of selfishness in the front office.

The Dodgers would have a better chance of changing their self-centered ways if someone - anyone - would step up and say, ``Mistakes? I've made a few.''

It's too bad Lasorda, in his accounting of things, consistently falls a few debits short of a balance.

It's hard to see how his latest diatribe, however on the mark it might be, is going to set anybody in the Dodgers clubhouse straight.

You have to set the record straight, first. It's doesn't take a world-class schmoozer to know it's counter-productive to call out others unless you own up to your own failings.

Self-deception is a shortcut to disaster. But we don't need to tell anyone in the Dodgers organization that.

Lasorda was right when he pointed out there's no ``i'' in team. However - and we didn't hear this from Lasorda - there is one in hypocrite.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO Tom Lasorda and the rest of the Dodgers might be able to move forward if only they can own up to their own failings.

Daily News File Photo